Tuesday, March 11, 2014

8th Bead Soup Blog Party

I cannot believe two years have past since I participated in the Bead Soup Blog Party which is organised each year by beading wizard Lori Anderson.   The intervening years seem to have flown by and this year I decided to make the effort to take part again as I need the push to get creative with beads again.

My partner this year is Cate van Alphen who works with polymer clay creating unusual and exotic beads.   Possibly we both feel a little daunted as bead soup swap partners as our ideas are so diverse and different but I am looking forward to the challenge.   My soup mix is ready to be posted and I hope that Cate will enjoy working with it.   I will put up some pictures of our respective mixes soon.

Unbelievably my swap partner is an ex South African who grew up very close to where I used to live near Durban in Natal.

The on line show was a great success with bears now on their way to new homes in different parts of the world.   Have several orders to complete and lots of UFOs need attention and completion to be added to our Etsy Store,   Grace & Whimsy.   I am longing to do some embroidery work for a change from stitching bears and we both have plans to set aside a couple of days just to work on this.   Of course we had planned to do this last week and again this week but so far other work has taken precedence.

After months of grey skies,  rain and so much water lying around that I felt that I was developing webbed feet,  Sunday dawned a bright, sunny day and temperatures reached 17C.  Mowed the front lawn and started to make plans for the garden,  spring is definitely in the air.

Several years ago I purchased some very pretty frilly pansy plants which each year have re-appeared in unexpected places in the garden.  This is one of them which is growing in a pot with a standard rose and the two totally different coloured flowers are actually on the same plant.  As we have had no snow this year it has survived the winter weather incredibly well.


Food for the soul is an important thing in my life and when grocery shopping I brought home a couple of bunches of bright and cheerful tulips.


The Mirabelle Plum is in full flower outside my bedroom window.   This year it has not been pruned so perhaps we will get sufficient fruit to make some more very delicious jam.


As no blog would be complete without at least one picture of a bear this is Bella, one of my handfuls, who was adopted by a very sweet lady at Hugglets and is now living in Belgium.



Have a good week ...............

In every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy. ~

2 comments:

Kays Kids said...

I love seeing your beautiful garden and pansy's. Why can't I grow Pansy's successfully. I can grow every thing else bur not pansy's. They seem to rot off from the bottom.
Hugs Kay

mcddiss said...

esa osita es una maravilla , y las fotografias de las plantas fantasticas , seguro que os quedara un trabajo genial, estoy desando verlo

besitos

Mari

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